Temporal Locum

by Wendie Nordgren

  Tivona, Saura, Imani, and Arden knelt around her. Tivona touched under Bym’s chin and gently lifted until Bym met her eyes. “We have been divided since your arrival. Aurora bade us to keep you safe and happy, but we can only do one or the other.”

  Imani said, “Aurora has faded. We loved her and served her loyally, but her time is over. We are your priestesses and will serve your will.”

  Arden said, “We will do as you command and send you through the gate at Noctus Luna.”

  Disbelieving her own ears, Bym gazed into each of their eyes in turn. “You mean it? You’ll help us?”

  They knelt around her. “We live to serve.”

  “Bym,” Guto said impatiently. “Excuse me,” he said while placing a big black boot to either side of a scandalized Imani, bending over, and picking up Bym from their midst. “You need to see this.”

  “Put me down! Can you not see we were having a moment? They’ve agreed to help us!”

  He lifted her over the ladies’ heads. She brought her foot back with clear intent. “No,” Guto said sternly. Only because their faces were inches apart could she tell through all of his black eye make-up how very serious he was. “You promised you wouldn’t hit me there.”

  “I wasn’t going to fucking hit you. I was going to kick you in the dick.”

  “No. Just look.” Sitting her on her feet, he gave her the spyglass. She made a whiny sound. “Oh, don’t be a fucking baby. Look through the fucking thing.”

  The priestesses gasped in outraged shock.

  Exasperated, he said, “She likes the word. She uses it to season her words in much the way you might garnish a plain dish with peppers. You’ll see.”

  “Fuck you, turd breath,” Bym said as she snatched the glass from his hand. “I don’t want to see these nasty goblins. What fucked up shit are they doing now?” Under her breath and impersonating Guto’s voice, she snidely said, “Baby, look. I got you some flowers. I love you so much. You’re so pretty with hair.” She snorted at him. “He could say any of those things, but no. Baby, look! There are goblins carrying oozing decaying corpses as sunshades. Check it out.”

  Guto groaned at her in annoyance.

  Bym looked through the glass. Danior and Fane led their cavalries across the fields. Red cloaks billowed behind hundreds of soldiers, like fire racing along a trail of gasoline, ready to ignite and burn the goblins to ash. “Um… yes, Danior and Fane are leading charges against the goblins. It does make me feel a little better, but what if men die? What if Eurig is with them?” Her last question sounded rather hysterical.

  Guto made a sound of exasperation. “Farther out.”

  She adjusted the glass. “What the?”

  The goblins were running toward the Golden City, but they were running away from something else. A massive army blanketed the land in black, like slowly pulling a black satin sheet over your skin, and the sight gave her similar pleasure. Umbra warriors filled fleeing goblins with black arrows, dropping them to the slowly vanishing ground until they were swallowed by a sea of black. Ravens with wingspans of at least six feet flew between commanders who maneuvered their forces seamlessly.

  Bym cried out in joy. “They’ve come for us! They’ve come to protect us! The goblins won’t stand a chance against us now!” Excitedly, she lifted her feet and ran in place while staring through the glass.

  “Who? What is happening?” Arden asked.

  Bym handed her the glass. The woman took it but stared at her. Bym turned to Guto. “I saw Captain Arwel leading the way! Our family is coming!” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy.

  Guto grinned at her.

  “Goddess,” Saura said, trying to get her attention.

  “Can it wait?” she asked. Guto had already taken her hand, and together they ran down the steps, from the palace, and through the city.

  At the gates to the Golden City, Guto and Bym stood above the portico and watched. The attacking goblins had been crushed. Black horses pranced as the Umbra archers on their backs secured their bows. Drem, Iago, Hopcyn, and Gethim rode forward with Captain Arwel at their center and his officers riding behind them. The Umbra forces were a line of black slashing through a sea of red. Bym smiled and waved to them from above the gates.

  The Order of Solis clanked swords to shields and set up a loud cheer in acknowledgement of her. The Umbra did as she expected. They marched toward her in silence. Then, as the main Umbra party entered the gates, the remaining forces began to split. They moved in lines of four abreast to the east and west, surrounding the city but where the sea prevented it. They had begun setting up their camps before Bym and Guto had descended the stairs.

  “Yeva!” Bym cried out.

  The priestess was like a gemstone on black velvet, and Bym had looked upon her with the same awe with which she might have viewed a multi-faceted four-carat sapphire. Guto kept her from being stepped on by warhorses as she wove through them to Yeva’s side. Reaching up a hand, she helped her dismount and then trapped her laughing friend in her arms.

  “You have no idea how very happy I am to see you.”

  After hugging her in return, she kissed her cheek. “You are our tree, and we are your garden of flowers and thorns. We live to serve you and go where you lead to do your will.” Bym’s gratitude was so strong that Yeva felt it in her soul. She closed her eyes, but Bym prevented her from kneeling.

  “Yeva, there’s horseshit. Don’t do it. Let’s get you to the palace where you can eat and rest.” She looped their arms together, gave Captain Arwel a kiss on the cheek, and smiled at Drem. She began, “After….”

  Hopcyn interrupted. “Yes, Goddess. We know. Stable the horses and come to the palace.” He sounded so bored.

  Bym briefly considered picking up some of the horseshit and throwing it at his head.

  Captain Arwel said, “What he is trying to say is that first, we have a surprise for you.”

  “You’re here. What could possibly be better? You and the Solis wiped out those nasty monsters.” She shuddered, trying to banish what she’d seen from her thoughts.

  Hee-haw! Hee-haw!

  Her heart slowed and then sped up full force. “Donkey?” she cried out.

  With laughter in his kohl-rimmed eyes, Arwel lifted his hand to signal his men. Horses were guided away from where they had concealed her. Bym ran and threw her arms around Donkey’s neck. She stood there with her eyes closed and let the joy of holding her friend seep into her. Well, she did until Donkey started licking her hair.

  “Would you stop? I just washed it. You’re such a turd.”

  Donkey snuffled at her hair and blinked long black lashes at her. She had a beautiful new black padded breast harness and a leather bridle.

  “Come on, Donkey. I’ll take you to the stables, brush you, and get you all of the apples you want.” Blushing, she turned her attention back to a laughing Yeva.

  She held up a hand, asking for patience while her joyous laughter abated. “I’ll help. I’m not tired. They refused to allow me to lift a finger along the way.”

  Together along with several Umbra and Solis, they led Donkey away to be pampered.

  They had been in the stables for quite some time when the stableman cautioned, “If you give her any more, she’ll be sick. It wouldn’t do for the Goddess Bym’s pet to have a stomach ache.”

  Hopcyn had made himself comfortable on a beam with his legs stretched out before him. “Another apple and she’ll get the shits. At most, give her two as a treat. If you plan to clean it up, fine. Don’t make the stableman do it, though. Donkey diarrhea is the worst.”

  Bym sneered at him. “Looking at you up there like a deranged goblin bat with that fucking mask is probably going to give all of the horses the shits. Go on. Flap your cape.”

  “He needs bat ears sewn to his hood,” Yeva suggested.

  “It can be arranged,” Bym replied. She’d removed Donkey’s breast collar and bridle while Yeva had told her about the saddle Arwel’s men had
had made for her. Then, Bym had brushed her and followed the advice given to her about Donkey’s care. It was afterwards when she’d started feeding her treats along with her hay. “I’ll let you rest. I love you.” Bym rubbed her nose in goodbye.

  A few men with the city’s popular form of transportation, rickshaws, waited to take them to the palace. The two ladies shared one. Yeva said, “Your hair looks lovely. This place seems to suit you.”

  Bym could hear the concern in her high priestess’ voice. “Your brother, and not the city, agrees with me. He restored my hair. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great here. It really is a nice place to visit, but it isn’t my home.”

  Her admission hadn’t been entirely necessary. Yeva and the other Umbra priestesses felt an undeniable link to their goddess. It was what the Solis priestesses had felt with Aurora, and now they felt a distant bond to Bym, one which they could only clearly feel through intense meditation and prayer. It was a feeling with which the Umbra had been familiar for centuries. Yeva knew the feeling of the distant link, so when she met Tivona, Saura, Imani, and Arden, she was sympathetic for their loss of the feeling in which she and her sisters would glorify for centuries to come. Their aging would slow as would that of all of those bound to the Goddess Bym so that she would not face her future alone. It had been so with each goddess, binding those she wished to her.

  Bym radiated happiness while introducing Yeva and helping her to familiarize herself with the rooms in which they stayed. Taking a silver plate from a cabinet, Yeva approached Bym and held it in front of her face.

  Imani said, “We tried to tell her.”

  Yeva said, “It’s not a new look for her, but at least this can be cleaned off.”

  “Oh, no. You’ve got to be kidding me. Seriously? I just greeted everyone like this? How did this happen?” Bym rubbed at the black circle around her eye. It had been the spyglass. She glared at Guto.

  He smirked at her. “I’d have told you if you hadn’t thought about kicking me.”

  Yeva said, “Let me help. It won’t come off by wiping at it, so it wouldn’t have done you any good to have known.” She took the plate from her.

  Bym said, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m so happy you’re here. Let’s get you comfortable.”

  After soaking in the bathing pool and sharing a meal, they spoke of all that had happened since they’d last met. Eventually, the men joined them. Captain Arwel spread a leather map over the dinner table. “We passed along this route.” He drew an imaginary line with his fingertip across the painted mountain roads and fields. “I left warriors at each of the settlements and aided in evacuations of farms along the way. We eradicated packs of attacking goblins as we encountered them. However, even banished from the surface for centuries by the lights of Aurora and Nesta, the goblins have been left to feed and increase their numbers to the point where they spill from their subterranean lairs and out into the land. We could kill a thousand each day without impacting their numbers. Left unchecked for however many centuries of peace the Goddess Bym gives to us, we might not be able to protect she to whom Bym one day passes on the Temporal Locum.”

  The sons of Aurora heeded his words. Eskil said, “Their numbers must be culled. Otherwise, those who depend upon hunting game for survival will be left with nothing.”

  “What of avian predators?” Arwel asked with a nod toward the raven resting on a perch beside an open window. “If the goblins eat all of the small wildlife, it will mean the extinction of many creatures.”

  Deferring to Arwel, the captain of the Temporal Locum’s chosen armies, Commander Eskil asked, “What do you propose?”

  Eurig was intrigued and hung on every word spoken amongst the experienced soldiers. Bym didn’t feel the same level of interest. Yeva had already excused herself, but Bym wasn’t ready for sleep. Climbing the steps to the roof, she sat on a cushion and opened her soul to the stars. They washed her in ancient memories. She could feel their lights energizing her every cell. She stared up at the twinkling lights upon their bed of night and lost all that had once been until all that remained was the Bym of this world. The sounds of waves rolling onto the nearby shore brought her back to the world. Feeling a presence, she turned her head toward her left shoulder.

  A shadow imbued with the power of starshine edged closer, and she silently welcomed his darkness. Drem knelt at her side.

  “Will the night come when we must no longer fear to love the darkness?” When he failed to answer, she dipped her chin in an effort to see beneath his hood. “Why do you hide from me?” Her voice was soft and playful.

  Drem wouldn’t tell her what all he hid from her. If she were to learn of his love and recognize their bond, she might discourage him from doing that which he had to do. Finding the Stones of Luna Ignis and casting the spell was the only way to fulfill her wish. It was the only way to send the goblins into a deep hibernation, one which would last for the entirety of Bym’s reign. Once the Solis and Umbra culled the goblin horde, and he sent them to sleep, the Goddess and her people could safely thrive in starlight. Simply, he said, “I did not mean to intrude upon your meditation.”

  Taking his hand, she drew him closer. “You didn’t.” Together, they gazed up and saw a shooting star. “Have they devised their plans?”

  “They have.”

  “How do their plans affect ours?”

  “We give them time to move their forces into place where they will flush the goblins from hiding and cull their numbers. Once they have completed their mission, we will embark upon our quest, only instead of the protection of a hundred warriors, you will have an army.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eurig and Guto kept her from tossing and turning during the night. She couldn’t fathom the reason for her unease. Captain Arwel had brought Yeva to her along with their fiercest warriors and her beloved Donkey. So, what was the source of her disquiet? Was it the quest on which they would soon go? With an army protecting her, what was there to fear? Logic did nothing to dispel the agitation she felt. Unable to remain in bed pretending to sleep any longer, she gingerly extricated herself from her lovers’ embraces. Once her toes touched the cool tiles at the foot of the bed, she tiptoed to the other room to dress.

  In the antechamber of the palace, she placed a finger to her lips and whispered to the priestesses there, “I’m going to take Donkey for a ride along the beach. Don’t worry. I’ll be safe.”

  “As you wish,” was the answer she received.

  Being an hour or so after midnight, most people slept. It was pleasing to her to be able to walk unnoticed along the streets. Sentinels noted her passing, and two shadows moved around her. She knew they guarded her but was glad they didn’t interfere.

  In the dark stable, Donkey perked up her ears. Bym found her bridle without any difficulty and led her from her stall. She chose to ride her bareback, the way she had learned. They kept to a slow quiet walk until they reached the beach. Then, Bym gave Donkey her freedom to go where she wanted. The sand muffled their passage. Brightly painted fishing boats were moored along the shore. Waves softly lapped at their hulls, one of the only sounds. Donkey wanted to trot through a foot of water, playing in the calm waves as she did.

  Bym was content to feel the fresh ocean air on her skin and Donkey’s solid warmth beneath her, but still something nagged at her. It was the same feeling which had prevented her sleep. She could see her palace from the shore, silent and sleeping. She was glad she hadn’t awoken anyone when she’d left. Pulling her attention from the house, she looked for shells washed upon the beach. Ripples had formed in the wet sand from the waves’ caresses.

  Donkey didn’t care about sand ripples or pretty shells which had washed ashore. She was too enthralled with the waves rushing over her legs, and soon the palace was behind them. However, her mount did seem to sense her troubled feelings and carried her closer along the metaphysical cord which relentlessly tugged her forward. What was this nagging thing keeping her from rest? She absently scratched at her c
hest and wondered if the cause of it was the power residing within her.

  Ahead, illuminated by the moon, was a figure seated on the sand. Instinctively, Bym felt the pull and knew the being before her had drawn her here. Standing, the figure turned away from the water as if to leave. Bym urged Donkey to hurry. The closer she got to the individual, the greater was her relief. The person had an effect on the itching within her chest similar to that of the flowery paste Eurig had once used to ease the burning of her goblin-scratched skin.

  As if experiencing the same feeling, the person abandoned efforts of hiding from her and stood still. The wind caught at his black robes which flapped behind him like the tattered sails of a ghost ship. Donkey splashed to a stop. Bym took off her shoes and threw them to the sand before tying Donkey’s reins in a loose knot and sliding from her back.

  “Why do I feel as though you drew me to you from my bed?” she asked as her feet hit the water, and her toes sank into the sand.

  “I came here to meditate and did not intend to disturb you. I would ask how you managed to find me here when I’ve seen no signs of habitation for miles, but you are our goddess and have your ways.” It was Drem.

  Sand stuck to her feet just like the feelings which she couldn’t shake free as she walked across the beach to him. For once, he wasn’t wearing his mask, and she could clearly see the similarities between him and Yeva, his sister. If he didn’t shave his head, his hair would be an inky black like hers. “Did you need to speak to me?”

  He looked away from her eyes and out over the water. “No, it’s late, and you shouldn’t be out here. Allow me to escort you to the palace.”